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About In the Falling Snow

From one of our most admired fiction writers: the searing story of breakdown and recovery in the life of one man and of a society moving from one idea of itself to another.

Keith—born in England in the early 1960s to immigrant West Indian parents but primarily raised by his white stepmother—is a social worker heading a Race Equality unit in London whose life has come undone. He is separated from his wife of twenty years, kept at arm’s length by his teenage son, estranged from his father, and accused of harassment by a coworker. And beneath it all, he has a desperate feeling that his work—even in fact his life—is no longer relevant.

Deeply moving in its portrayal of the vagaries of family love and bold in its scrutiny of the personal politics of race, this is Caryl Phillips’s most powerful novel yet.

About In the Falling Snow

From one of our most admired fiction writers: the searing story of breakdown and recovery in the life of one man and of a society moving from one idea of itself to another.

Keith—born in England in the early 1960s to immigrant West Indian parents but primarily raised by his white stepmother—is a social worker heading a Race Equality unit in London whose life has come undone. He is separated from his wife of twenty years, kept at arm’s length by his teenage son, estranged from his father, and accused of harassment by a coworker. And beneath it all, he has a desperate feeling that his work—even in fact his life—is no longer relevant.

Deeply moving in its portrayal of the vagaries of family love and bold in its scrutiny of the personal politics of race, this is Caryl Phillips’s most powerful novel yet.

From the Trade Paperback edition.

Praise

“[Phillips is] an insightful and sympathetic chronicler of race, British identity, and the immigrant experience.” —The Christian Science Monitor

“Phillips displays his considerable writing skills. His ear for speech is acute; his eye for the cityscapes of both London and the north of England is good; his sense of the history of England in the 1960s is sure and, most significantly, he has a dramatist’s talent for creating telling scenes and incidents.” —Washington Times

“Throughout Phillips’s fiction and nonfiction, he focuses on people who are caught in between places, desires, and circumstances of history. . . . [Here,] he elegantly handles a complicated time scheme, shifting smoothly between Keith’s present and memories of his past.” —World Literature Review

“Phillips has written extensively . . . about the legacy of the slave trade and the immigrant experience. . . . The hero’s dying father delivers an incandescent soliloquy.” —The New Yorker

“Caryl Phillips is an alpha-class writer, both as a phrase-maker and as an observer of human nature.” —Mail on Sunday (UK)“Phillips’s excellent reputation is well deserved. He explores grand themes by peering expertly through the net curtains of everyday life. Intelligent, gripping, understated and affecting, this is a brilliant account of how real life can get in the way of a family’s dreams.” —Birmingham Post (UK)

About Caryl Phillips

Caryl Phillips was born in St. Kitts, West Indies, and brought up in England. He is the author of numerous works of fiction and nonfiction. His novel Dancing in the Dark won the 2006 PEN/Beyond Margins Award, and an earlier… More about Caryl Phillips

About Caryl Phillips

Caryl Phillips was born in St. Kitts, West Indies, and brought up in England. He is the author of numerous works of fiction and nonfiction. His novel Dancing in the Dark won the 2006 PEN/Beyond Margins Award, and an earlier… More about Caryl Phillips